Some Benedictine monks, with a strange mixture of the secular and the spiritual in their affections, presented themselves a few days ago as claimants to vote for members of Parliament. Though they profess to entirely devote themselves to the Church, they do not wish to be de-voted or deprived of votes for the county of Northumberland. But the best of the joke—rather a solemn piece of mockery, by-the-bye—was the fact of their appearing in the character of persons having taken "a vow of poverty," to claim their right to certain property, in respect of which they contended that they ought to have the electoral franchise. The contradictory and anomalous position in which they stood led to a cross-examination of the claimants, in the course of which some peculiar views as to the effect of "a vow of poverty" were elicited. The result seems to be, that a Benedictine monk may be a man of property, though he has taken a vow of poverty, and that, in the words of one of the professional men engaged on the occasion, "so far as respects property, the law of poverty has no effect whatever."

The Benedictine monk was a good deal pressed, and in spite of the ingenuity appropriate to his "order," he was driven into a corner, from which he could not escape except upon the prong of a fork which the professional gentleman kept continually presented to the Benedictine monk, for the latter to fall upon. When told that, "in making the vow of poverty, he says he has no property whatever," the "monk" could only reply, "We must have property, or we could not exist;" so that we are justified in asking, What is the meaning of a vow of poverty, if it can be taken by a man of property who, on the strength of that property, lays claim to a vote for the county? The witness when pressed admitted, "We all have property"—all we who have made a vow of poverty, or an abnegation of property—but the way we manage it is this: "We have what is called a ‘peculium,’ which is a separate thing from the vow of poverty." It is convenient, certainly, to be able to be poor and rich at the same time, and to combine all the temporal advantages of property with the spiritual advantages of poverty. The "peculium" is, of course, elastic, and there is no particular place for drawing the line in the banker’s book. A vow of poverty which admits of a "peculium" in the shape of a private fortune is like a vow of teetotalism, which allows of a "peculium" in the form of a private gin-bottle. —London Charivari.

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The article which appears under the caption of "Calendar of the Seven Times of Babylon and Judah," is from "Anatolia, or Russia Triumphant and Europe Chained." By the time this Herald is received, it will be ready for publication. — Price 50 cents.

EDITOR.

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